Below was the procedure of editing this text archive.
0. All original texts are from personal memos and notes. All writings are independently written, each of which are about experiences, made-up stories, and dreams of mine and my friends.
1. I revised memos to the present tense, and dialogues to the form of a play.
2. If the origial writings indicated certain sentiments, I omitted out the phrases.
3. I revised all names of people and places in alphabet initialss, and deleted any hints on the character’s gender and age.
4. I merged some multiple people into a single character, while divided some individuals into multiple.
5. I reorganized all writings outside of the chronological order.
6. I made up details for some writings.
‘Recalling’ seems like a series of actions, involving picking up a videotape on a shelf in the brain, putting it in a videotape player, and pressing the play button. But in reality, it is rather a present process of recalling and restructuring the past scene, here and now. Because to recall the scene, you have to imagine the scene. The scene of the memory, narratively structured by imagination, happens always in the present tense. When recalled, memories are no longer within the chronological narrative of life. They are always fragmented, subjective(thus erratic), present, and decontextualized.
Working on this text archive, I aimed to reconstruct the original memos/memories using the mechanism of reconstructive memory. What can I achieve by doing this?
Personally, and most importantly, this is a project to redeem the past by making it the present and perhaps hypothetical future, making each memories look like never-ended thus un-ending scenarios. What is it like to unshackle the limits of linear and specific perspectives on timeframe of memories? This project is a statement of imagining nonlinear temporality, and de-signifying personalities thus declaring “I am you and you are me.”
Excerpt from the preface
0. All original texts are from personal memos and notes. All writings are independently written, each of which are about experiences, made-up stories, and dreams of mine and my friends.
1. I revised memos to the present tense, and dialogues to the form of a play.
2. If the origial writings indicated certain sentiments, I omitted out the phrases.
3. I revised all names of people and places in alphabet initialss, and deleted any hints on the character’s gender and age.
4. I merged some multiple people into a single character, while divided some individuals into multiple.
5. I reorganized all writings outside of the chronological order.
6. I made up details for some writings.
‘Recalling’ seems like a series of actions, involving picking up a videotape on a shelf in the brain, putting it in a videotape player, and pressing the play button. But in reality, it is rather a present process of recalling and restructuring the past scene, here and now. Because to recall the scene, you have to imagine the scene. The scene of the memory, narratively structured by imagination, happens always in the present tense. When recalled, memories are no longer within the chronological narrative of life. They are always fragmented, subjective(thus erratic), present, and decontextualized.
Working on this text archive, I aimed to reconstruct the original memos/memories using the mechanism of reconstructive memory. What can I achieve by doing this?
Personally, and most importantly, this is a project to redeem the past by making it the present and perhaps hypothetical future, making each memories look like never-ended thus un-ending scenarios. What is it like to unshackle the limits of linear and specific perspectives on timeframe of memories? This project is a statement of imagining nonlinear temporality, and de-signifying personalities thus declaring “I am you and you are me.”
Excerpt from the preface